A conventional CD-ROM drive is generally designed to contain a gear mechanism and a motor for mechanically rotating the gear mechanism to execute loading-in or ejecting-out of a compact disc.
FIG. 1 illustrates basic components of a conventional CD-ROM drive. As shown in the drawing, the conventional CD-ROM drive 1 comprises: a support tray 11, a disc loading switch 12, a loading/ejecting motor 13, a gear mechanism 14, an electronic circuit 15, a read/write head module 16, a disc ejecting switch 17, a read/write head moving device 18 and a read/write head 19. In operation of the CD-ROM drive 1 for disc loading, first, a compact disc is placed on the support tray 11 used for disc holding; next, a disc loading button is pressed or the support tray 11 is pushed into the CD-ROM drive 1. This then activates the disc loading switch 12, and in turn triggers a forward rotation of the loading/ejecting motor 13, which would associatively rotate the gear mechanism 14 to move the support tray 11 into the CD-ROM drive 1. When the support tray 11 reaches a predetermined loading position, the electronic circuit 15 stops the loading/ejecting motor 13, and allows the read/write head module 16 to start reading the compact disc.
For disc ejection from the CD-ROM drive 1, first, a disc ejecting button is pressed to activate the disc ejecting switch 17, and in turn trigger a reverse rotation of the loading/ejecting motor 13, which would correspondingly drive the gear mechanism 14 to eject the support tray 11 out of the CD-ROM drive 1. When the support tray reaches a predetermined ejecting position, the electronic circuit 15 stops the loading/ejecting motor 13 and allows the compact disc to be removed from the support tray 11. After that, the support tray 11 is again pushed back into the CD-ROM drive 1.
Before disc loading or after disc ejecting, the read/write head module 16 e.g. optical-lens read/write module, mechanically operates the read/write head moving device 18 to elevate the read/write head 19. As such, when the support tray 11 is readily held in position inside the CD-ROM drive 1, the read/write head moving device 18 would lower the read/write head 19 to a level where the read/write head 19 can proceed to read the compact disc.
However, the above conventional CD-ROM drive has significant drawbacks. First, the loading/ejecting motor and the gear mechanism occupy considerable space; thereby the CD-ROM drive is hardly made more compact in size. Moreover, the additional assembly of a read/write head moving device, not only undesirably increases material and fabrication costs, but also requires extra work of device adjustment and maintenance. In addition, mechanical mode of operation for the CD-ROM drive tends to malfunctions or breakdowns with higher chance. And, the gear mechanism is easily damaged, thereby degrading the lifetime of the CD-ROM drive; the gear mechanism is cost-ineffectively manufactured and assembled, and damaged gear mechanism is hardly repaired, making fabrication and maintenance costs both greatly increased for the conventional CD-ROM drive.
Therefore, how to develop a CD-ROM drive that can effectively eliminate the above drawbacks or problems, is a significant topic to be herewith discussed.